Session 9

Pre-Festival - Orcs in Danger

Notes: The characters woke to the sounds of great bustling outside and the scribbling of an ink-dipped beak on the desk. Mr. Bobo, who pulled another all-nighter, finished up notes on the two runescript books and insisted that the two use his notes to attempt to read the books as an attempt to learn the language (and other, unspoken benefits).

Outside, the two encountered a great deal of activity: people were bustling about the street carting fresh-picked veggies, hefting masonry for the Temple of Pfen, carrying dried meat (presumably bear jerky), unloading a cart of sacks and crates parked outside the inn, erecting posts and hanging lanterns across the main street. A lute was even being played from the second floor window of the inn. Upon inquiry, one of the laborers informed them that the bridge was back up, and that the Stiltons were throwing a three-day harvest festival the day after next.

The two wandered over to the Adventurers’ Board, where they saw the following:

The schedule shows a lesson later that day (“Your Kiai and You”).

A post by the Siltons announcing a three-day harvest festival (with bear jerky!) beginning in two days (these signs can also be seen elsewhere in the town: the inn, on the adventurer cottages). Laborers eat free; adventurers are 10g ea. (“Please consider this a fundraiser; all proceeds will go towards permanent housing for the laborers.”)

A note scrawled in terrible handwriting that says “HELP” with a backwards “E.”

The tacked remains of a note torn off the board.

Inside LDAGs, a throng of people were gathered around a cordoned-off area. Lonk ushered the two in through the gathering and behind the posts to see a wooden mannequin dressed in a blue, chain-woven tunic, a blue cap, and a large metal shield with a peculiar crest on it. After a sales pitch, he then led them over to the counter, he also showed them a bracelet of interwoven ivory and red gemstone, described as a bracelet of power, and beneath the counter in a locked box locked inside another box, a wood sword he referred to as “THE Wooden Sword.”

Determining that the “HELP” request was from Hugdish, the two went to the Stilton farm. Hugdish requested they check out the gnolls in the Silver Gap, who he believed were up to something bad from the strange noises he heard walking past their cave.

Players purchased equipment in preparation of the journey, then set out to the Silver Gap. After seeing nothing at the gnoll cave and hearing a commotion further upstream, the pushed on to find a charred orc corpse at the entrance to the orcs’ cave. Inside, they found five gnolls and a few small elementals attacking the orcs in their cave, who they engaged in combat. The leader of the gnolls carried a rune-scribed staff, which he used to summon more elementals, bolstering their forces.